This Man is an Island
by PlanetOfTheWeepingWillow
Summary: Arthur Kirkland is sent to Azkaban. There, he has a brief exchange with convicted Sirius Black. At first Sirius assumes the gloom hadn't got to Arthur yet, but slowly it becomes apparent that the sorrow of the prison has no affect on Arthur whatsoever.
1. Chapter 1

"Why are you here?"

"I did something real nasty."

Arthur looked through the bars, across at the man bound in shadows behind his own bars. His hair, ragged clumps of black like charred flesh fell down his ashen face. His eyes were gaunt but they had something there, something as close to life as they could in wizards' prison. The man, Sirius Black, gave a stiff nod. He knew better than to continue pestering Arthur. He leaned back on his cages.

Cloaks ebon slid past their bars, sending a mournful shiver through their being. When they passed Sirius turned his gaze back at Arthur, drinking his appearance in. Arthur, in drab clothing, must have once been a picture of class. His shock of blond hair now fell raggedly, matted with dirt. His eyes were the color of a calm sea, a greenish-blue with just the same amount of depth and mystery. Arthur picked at the walls with his nails. Azkaban was no place for him, Sirius knew, and not for him either. Sirius sighed.

"He must be in his second year now." Arthur stated. In the other cells inmates muttered something Arthur couldn't catch.

"I'll leave soon, I know I will." Sirius said. His eyes, shallow pits, sprung to a new life at the thought of his godson, of escape. Arthur wondered if he had a plan. He wouldn't get very far using a spoon to dig his way out. There were no sewage systems to climb out of, either. He grinned broadly at Arthur. He hadn't had this relationship akin to friendship for a long time, and he intended to milk it for all it's worth.

Arthur nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Yoouuu," a heavily accented voice came from the cell next to Sirius's. It was a woman with a mass of black hair and a soft, round face. She gripped the bars with a deranged look on her face. One glance told Arthur her name: Amy H. Heather. She was convicted of setting up some sort of trade between wizards and muggles. Arthur knew every person in England. It was his duty.

"Me?" Arthur asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, you, how come you en't brain dead yet?"

Arthur licked his lips casually and gave a low, long sigh. "I'm not alone."

Amy shook her head, her strands of hair shaking. "Neither are we."

Arthur laughed. The sound vibrated against the walls. Inmates staggered to life from their half0dead dozes. No one had laughed in the prison. Fear quaked through each body. Even Sirius felt the cells of his being quivering in apprehension. Arthur pointed his finger at his temple. "I have good old Beethoven in my head. Right now it's his ninth symphony." He began to quietly hum the tune.

If muggle prisons were home to a melancholy harmonica's wail, then, in that solitary moment in time, standing alone like a patch of green in a dead field was Arthur's humming. Amy's mouth dropped open. "Who's Beethoven?" She said. Arthur didn't reply. He shut his eyes, the bags beneath drooping so low, and pictures the violins, the flutes… He could see the music playing in his head so clearly it may as well have been playing right by his ears. He tapped his fingers against the floor.

"He's mad."

Sirius ignored the speaker. He had never heard Beethoven's ninth, though he had once hears something about the composer from Lily. The memories drifted through his mind, faded photographs lost in a breeze.

Some time elapsed and Sirius looked back at Arthur, who was awake and carving something in the walls. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"What does it look like? I'm carving my initials. One day someone else will find me here."

"You're a strange man." Sirius remarked. He was nothing but a skin bag of bones and a measly pumping heart. Somehow, some way, Arthur managed to breathe life into him, if only briefly.

"I've been in prison before." Arthur said as a way of replying. "In muggle prisons I usually carve or write to pass the time. You have a lot of time before you and I don't want to waste it on being bored out of my mind. Instead I'll choose something to do. Who knows, I may even write an entire poem on these walls."

The dark cloaks passed by again, but Sirius barley noticed them. They flitted by like a raven across a window, noticed, but forgotten. If only Arthur could stay forever, but _some birds are not meant to be caged._ He wondered where he had heard that phrase before him.

"Are muggle prisons…? What are they like?"

Arthur bit his lip in concentration. That man lived in a realm of his own, separate from both the wizards and muggles, as though a wall had been erected between the two, stopping the flow of time and space as easily as stopping sand from passing between two vessels with a simple glass disk.

"They are different. They don't need these buggers to sap the happiness and hope out of you. They do it themselves. They can make friends, they live there, they rely on the bars, and then when they are set free they die of loneliness and fear. You forget what it's like to be free, but at the same time you see what being free means. You see the world for what it is. You see that the role of villain and hero isn't a simple archetype like in stories. Instead the lines are so heavily blurred you can't even see them." Arthur set down the rock. He spun it around with his thumb. "Sometimes I think you wizards can be so devoid of emotion. You think muggles are nothing but empty husks without magic, these vacuums lacking something important. But they feel so strongly I think it's a magic of its own."

Sirius frowned. How could they feel so much? Some were horrible, crude. Even so they weren't so different. "Is that why purebloods seem to hate muggle-borns?"

"I don't know, I've never been one and I don't think I will ever be one."

"Are you a half-blood?"

"Mudbloods!" Someone nearby croaked out. Arthur's affect rippled through the crowd, a single drop shaking an entire pond. Arthur peered through his bars, rusted with age, at the speaker. Several heads, all sullen, some lost, stared back at him. Big men and tiny women alike shared the cells, lacking life and luster.

"I am not a half blood and I was not born of muggles." Arthur said.

Sirius didn't understand. To this Arthur gave a grin.

"Why doesn't it affect you?" A tall, lanky woman asked Arthur. She nodded at the bleak robes that passed by with a quickening pace each time, and more frequently.

"I'm used to it, I suppose." Arthur shook his head. "Isn't it strange how art depicts tears to be so large? When you actually see tears they are tiny, little droplets of water. You look so red and ugly when you cry, but artists think they are the most beautiful thing. Oh, teardrops, as a poet I should know why they enrapture our hearts…" he continued to prattle on.

The prisoners who wanted to throw something at him in an attempt to shut his mouth lost all will to. Arthur's ranting had lifted their spirits. This only indicated that he wouldn't be staying. Arthur talked about sadness, birds, the sea, and his favorite topic above all was an old weeping willow he used to visit as a child. His childhood, from how he framed it, could have been either several years before or centuries past. Each word dictated an aura of age, covered in a film of dust, and well-worn. At the same time they pulsed with life like a newborn.

"So what did you do to get in here?" Sirius asked at last, after hearing Arthur fall silent on recollection.

Arthur turned and stared directly at Sirius, his eyes boring deep. Arthur remained quiet for what felt like an eternity until finally he gave a base grin. "I did what you were accused of. Except I did it with my hands. I killed a man."

Sirius nodded slowly and Arthur returned to his usual dapper mood. His fingers remained curled in his lap, as if holding a flower delicately.

Months passed and Arthur during the day would speak. He never seemed to tire. At times he would direct all conversation to himself and become fitful and angry. Sirius watched him with rising interest and, when Arthur finally vanished—no authorities on the outside seemed to mind—Sirius discovered the image of his face and voice slowly fading from his mind. Each passing wave of time, pulling him closer and closer to his escape, to Harry, washed over Arthur's image, eroding it to nothing but dust.

* * *

_I do not own Hetalia or Harry Potter. _


	2. Chapter 2

The play had yet to begin and Arthur already began to frown. He watched the actor portraying Macbeth swagger on to the shoddy wooden platform. Each line he said grated Arthur's patience. He watched his smarmy, hammy face with growing displeasure. Even the Lady Macbeth sickened Arthur.

"Shakespeare, I do beg your pardon…" he muttered under his breath.

Other viewers near him tossed an amused glance his way, before turning their gazes back at the outdoor stage. Arthur stood near the back, his hands buried deep in his brown coat. A muffler hid the lower half of his face. His hair shivered in the autumn air. The play began to bore him, despite the actual story being his favorite of all, and so instead he watched the crowd. Groups stood huddled, some bored, some mildly interested. White clouds parted from their lips. The gray sky loomed overhead. Arthur regretted having spent several coins to enter and was tempted to leave. He couldn't. There was something he had left to do.

_By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes!_

The second witch screeched, being possibly the only good actor. She grinned wickedly and spread her fingers out. Arthur watched her in interest, at least trying to enjoy the beauty of Shakespeare's words. Arthur rocked on his heels, growing more impatient once she left the scene. He could sense a witch to his left. It was a young woman with kinky black hair and a gentle face, the kind that although not outwardly beautiful was still pleasant. She held close to her a child with hair the exact opposite hue of hers and bright, wondering eyes. Arthur smiled at the girl pleasantly. She shied away.

Arthur ducked his head so only the woman next to him could hear. "What a marvelous portrayal of witches, isn't it?"

The woman raised her circumflex eyebrows. "Yes, I think it is quite clever. She acts just like my grandmother."

"Is that so?" Arthur grinned.

"Just the same! Mind you, when she accidentally sat on her wand and snapped it in two, I swear she let out that same screech."

"How droll," Arthur said. The two rumbled in suppressed laughter.

Like children exchanging a secret, the woman leaned closer, her black curls spilling. They hung like curtains, gently cradled by the chilly wind. "Even with this crude portrayal, I still can't help but feel he had an idea about us."

Arthur shook his head curtly.

"No?"

"I knew him."

The woman giggled. Her child's eyes fastened on Arthur. When Arthur noticed she tore them away and pretended to have found something interesting with her shoes. Arthur sighed and faced the stage. He watched the actor swagger through the stage. Hatred rose like a tidal wave. Arthur balled his fists. No one noticed.

Once the play ended and the crowd dispersed, Arthur approached the wooden building behind the stage, used as a slipshod dressing room. He raised his fist and knocked twice. The sounds were crisp. No one could have mistaken it for a fanatic. The door pulled open and a young woman, the second witch, smiled at him. Without the make-up and costume she was a fetching young woman.

"Hello." She said.

"May I see your Macbeth, Charlie Lee?"

"What for?" She leaned against the frame. Her busty figure burst from her clothing. The silk tightened against her smooth skin. Arthur took no notice.

"I wanted to compliment his excellent, eloquent acting." Arthur lied smoothly. The witch obviously disagreed but nonetheless agreed to fetch him. After a short interval Lee stepped out of the trailer-like structure. The group was a collection of aspiring (mostly bad) actors who made a not so lucrative business showing off classic plays in parks. Arthur heard a call of a crow when Lee shut the door behind him, as though one sound caused the other.

The man was taller than Arthur, and lankier. He had an ugly smear for an eyebrow and tussled dirty blond hair. He grinned sheepishly, a blush rising in his cheeks. "You think my acting is good?" Arthur nodded once. "Oh," he sighed, obviously in great relief. He wore plain clothing and a long coat, obviously leaving for the day. "I'm so happy. I really tried hard out there."

Arthur felt a hint of sympathy, like a slight craving for some far-off food. The man obviously wanted to do well. That was not the reason Arthur didn't like him, though.

"I want to be an actor as well." Arthur said. "Can you walk with me and give me some advice? I can treat you to something later for your troubles."

"I'd be happy to!" he said, a little too eagerly.

The men walked through the thinning crowd until they reached a relatively vacant stretch of park, feeding into the nearby forest. All the while Lee poured out useless comments that, although not totally false, held no water. Arthur nodded and grunted when he needed to. They reached a public toilet and Arthur made to stop there.

"Come with me." Arthur said, nodding to the rectangular structure. "There's some clever graffiti back there."

Lee nodded, happy for the attention he was receiving. He went around and looked at the back. There was a design along the back that was, in fact, a clever remark on the current situation. It did not improve circumstances but Arthur repeated that it was clever several times. He kept Lee's neck to him. Arthur raised his hand and placed his thumb against Lee's neck. Lee jumped.

"Sorry, there's s spot of dirt there. Let me get it."

Lee was comfortable around Arthur. Maybe it had to do with Arthur's open, smart smile. Or maybe he was desperate. Nonetheless this was the man who beat his wife regularly and tortured his children by burning their toes and stomachs, where the scars wouldn't be seen. Arthur reminded himself that what he was doing was cleaning up, decreasing the surplus population.

For a nation to kill a mortal, Arthur discovered, all he had to do was apply just the right amount of pressure and will. He barely needed to clean up. He had strange powers, after all, and easily killing a bad man was nothing. Arthur pressed his thumb against the brain stem and Lee dropped dead. Arthur dusted off his black gloves. He propped Lee up against the side of the structure and contemplated how to dispose of the body, but not soon enough.

That was how he entered muggle prison for a third time.


End file.
